Dana Stabenow has two good series of mysteries set in Alaska. The Kate Shugak ones involve a lot of Native issues; the Liam Campbell ones are set on the coast and involve fishing and bush pilots. Both have ongoing arcs dealing with the lead character's love lives. I like them: they have a real sense of place, and Dana Stabenow is a big Buffy fangirl.

I love Nevada Barr, so Dana Stabenow sounds fascinating.

I got to copyedit a Dana Stabenow once, and I sort of fangirled all over it. I had never read her, and at the time I had done a bunch of really disappointing mysteries for St. Martin's (like, "why did they publish this?!" disappointing), and I loved the Stabenow book.

Try the Crombie books sometime, though, Kristin! I promise you'll like them.

Amy, I admit that while I really enjoy Stabenow's storytelling and characters, her tendency to change povs in the middle of a paragraph never ceases to annoy me. I've become kind of a hardass on pov.

On edit: not, of course, that you are to be blamed for her failings...

t grins and shrugs

It's so long ago that I can't say for sure, but if she did that in the manuscript I had, I would have queried it. Big no-no in my eyes.

And while I did like it and read one other, I didn't keep up. Too many books, too little time (too much good porn fic to read on the intarwebs...)

She's done it for her entire career, so I suspect a query wouldn't have made much difference.

And the newer stuff? Occasionally kinda porny.

It was a link about BtVS from Dana Stabenow's web site that led me to Buffy threads on WorldCrossing. I lurked there once in a while, then followed the crowd to here, where I lurked some more.

I liked Stabenow's "Star Svensdotter" series a lot. My copies didn't survive my move from Colorado in 1997, and I haven't been able to find them to replace them, but if you ever come across any of the three, I recommend them.

The Kate Shugak series was pretty good. Interesting stories, interesting characters, some humor, and as Consuela said, a great sense of place. She lost me after about the seventh book. Kate had become unlikeable, and too many people were being too stupid, it broke my willing suspension of disbelief.

The first couple of Liam Campbell books were merely okay. I kept nit-picking the flying scenes, and I lost interest in continuing.

I didn't like Blindfold Game at all. Her blog entries from her time spent on board a Coast Guard cutter doing research for the book were much more interesting.

No, Susan said that the one she voted for was historical, with the 2 basically naked people. Because y'know, people throughout history have been naked....

I could've lived with the naked. But no one was naked with those hairstyles 200 years ago!

I kept nit-picking the flying scenes, and I lost interest in continuing.

Really? There was one scene in one of them that I thought was just fabulous, where Liam is the spotter while his ex flies the plane looking for a school of fish, and there's dozens of boats down below and a whole bunch of other planes above that they're trying not to hit. It was just exciting as hell, and very well-described in a way so you could really imagine it. I like that kind of writing.

It was a fabulous scene, and what she described is similar in many ways to what it's like to be in a gaggle of sailplanes sharing a thermal. There were too many "Yes...but no...." moments.

I'm overly critical of descriptions of flying. I recognize it, but I can't stop doing it. It's stuff I'd like to think I know, even though I know my information is almost 15 years out of date.